


Wonders of Adolescence

by Green_Sphynx



Series: Ten Years of Depravity [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance (Voltron) is Appreciated, M/M, Pidge's projects can't always be a success, Science Fiction, as in fictional science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24736909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Sphynx/pseuds/Green_Sphynx
Summary: This is a story explaining why certain experiments must not be done facing the door, and how everyone learns a whole lot more about Shiro, Lance and Keith than they were prepared to.
Relationships: Keith/Lance/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Ten Years of Depravity [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741198
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	Wonders of Adolescence

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wonders of Youth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3482522) by [Green_Sphynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Sphynx/pseuds/Green_Sphynx). 



> Now the prompt fic of this one, this prompt fic is my most popular from 2015 only because it took me a year to complete it, but it was my Masterwork.  
> I said it then, I still say it now, 5 years, much experience and many lessons and improvements later. I am a better writer than I was then, but even now that one fic is my masterpiece, my symphony, my magnum opus - I may have learned to write better, but I have never quite told a story like I did that time.  
> It's also my first successfully finished multichapter (only one having followed since, last year) and all of that made it... one very intimidating fic to use as a prompt now. I put all my pride in that fic, and writing something based on it is a really big demand to make of myself. How can I ever do my masterwork justice?  
> Well, not in a single chaptered shortfic of some 2k, that's for sure.  
> So this here is only a first chapter (of hopefully 4 in total), mor of a prologue really. I will not be posting the second chapter soon, since I have yet to write it (had to step back from the overwhelmingly high bar I set myself for this), but instead I will finish the 10 years anniversary series first.  
> So take this as a preview, a first taste, of what I hope will eventually be able to live up at least a bit to my best work. Have patience waiting for the rest (this is only the 6th out of a series of 10, after all) and by god, I hope I will be able to make it worth the wait.

"Hey, Lance! Do you have some time to come rubber ducky for me and check out this test I'm about to run?"

Talk about unexpected.

Lance slowly lowered the pad he'd been using, needing a moment to fully register what Pidge was asking. What Pidge was asking of _him,_ specifically.

"Uh, sure… is Hunk busy or something?" He put the pad down on his nightstand and followed Pidge into the hallway to the room that was currently dubbed her 'lab'. He was really more used to her kicking him out of there than her inviting him to come in, so it felt weird entering right behind her.

It was a cluttered mess of pieces of tech and raw materials that looked various shades of dangerous, so Lance made sure to stick strictly to the free path meandering through the room.

"Yeah, but I don't need Hunk for this part yet anyway so that's fine." Pidge all but shooed him over to a large desk off to the side that had a cryopod flat on the ground beside it, partially dismantled and various odd looking parts drawn out onto the desk that were somehow attached with not entirely tangible looking cables to the cryopod below.

"You could've warned me you were in the middle of the gruesome autopsy of a cryopod," Lance joked, stepping up to it to give it a small pat on the smooth outside. " _Alas_ , _poor Yorick_! I knew him, Pidge, a pod of infinite freezing jets, of most excellent remedy!"

"Cool your classics Lance, it's a healing pod, not your uncle."

"He might as well be, after how often Coran had me clean them."

"That's too bad, I killed him." Her tone was so flat, Lance _had_ to do a dramatic gasp in response. "But he may just help us achieve a medical breakthrough, so I think he'd be proud. Now sit down there and zip it Lance, rubber duckies don't talk."

Lance obediently mimed zipping his lips closed and sat down on the stool she dragged out of the mess for him.

"So it's like this- I've been studying how the cryopods work their healing and I deduced that what they're doing is basically _reversing_ whatever has been done that damaged the body. Tore open flesh in a deep cut? It'll merge it back together into one. Broke a bone? Fuse it like the _bone_ cells actually grow at the same speed as other, fleshy types of cells. Lost a pint of blood? _Regrow_ it. It's basically the control Z of the body, expressed into a pod."

"But all these restorations we've used them for so far were for the restoration of things lost - _not_ for the disappearance of things gained. And _that_ is what may potentially bring us to reprogramming the cryopods into not only restoring wounds, but also cure diseased. If the cryopods could flush out a virus or any other infection that doesn't belong - or imagine even further, if the cryopod could even determine genetic defects and cure _those!"_

Pidge was looking way excited, and Lance… well, he was keeping his mouth shut like he was ordered, but his eyes were wide as saucers. If Pidge would be able to make cryopods do that… well, that would be _beyond_ incredible.

"Sadly, all that is just theoretical, at this point in time." She waves a dismissive hand as if she hadn't just been theorising the Cure of All Diseases Ever with one little dismantled cryopod. "That's why I want to do this experiment, to see how far the current restoring- _reversing_ capabilities of the cryopods go. Do they only restore what was lost? Or can they also take back what was _gained?_ I had the Green Lion spawn this plant and I'm going to make the cryopod restore it, see if it can actually reduce it to the sapling it started as."

Pidge seemed to have produced the see-through container with the wiggling thorny vine locked inside from nowhere, setting it down hard in the middle of the desk in the very small space available. She was already attaching several of the weirdly disconcerting cables to the container before she graced Lance with a look.

"I asked you here because you're good at observing, more than anyone else on this ship. All I need you to do is watch closely for what happens once I activate the healing sequence from the pod, and try to note down _every detail_ that you can see. The more details we can distinguish together, the more information I have to start with on reprogramming the crypods into healer of _anything."_

"N-note down every detail, got it," Lance stammered, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed by what Pidge just poured over him. The whole space thing and aliens and Galra and _healing cryopods_ had all been relatively easy to swallow, but only because they were all dropped on them _without_ the details. This was… as TMI as it could get, to Lance.

But he wasn't here to fail Pidge when she specifically asked for _his_ help over anyone else's. If he could be useful in any way, he absolutely would.

"Alright then, sit tight and watch closely." Pidge connected a last cable and dropped back in a chair, grabbing her laptop and typing out the few necessary commands to get it started. "Whatever happens, and however long it takes, just make sure to stay on _this_ side of the cryopod, okay?"

There was something of a belated thought fluttering by that if their location compared to the cryopod mattered, they shouldn't be doing it _opposing_ the one entry to the lab, but Pidge was already activating the process and Lance needed all his focus on _observation_ now.

Pidge most likely thought of everything up front, there was no need to worry.

Only there _was_ reason to worry, when electricity crackles over cables in ways that it really really shouldn't, and the door across of them slid open to reveal Shiro walking into the lab.

The next thing Lance knew he had already shot up to his feet to rush to Shiro, calling out because he _needed to get Shiro to safety._

The _last_ thing he knew was the crackle of electricity and a freezing chill hitting his spine and spreading through his body like wildfire, and then everything went black.


End file.
